August Diehl (1886-1938)

August Diehl

August Diehl * November 15, 1886 in Halle/Saale as Anton Emanuel Kürnitz; † March 21, 1938 in Hamburg was a German painter, graphic artist and sculptor. As an autodidact, Diehl moved between the poles of expressive realism and socially critical verism. Diehl worked in a figurative-expressive style and in his work critically reflected the social reality of the 1930s in Germany. Diehl is particularly important as a concise draftsman and portraitist, e.g. numerous self-portraits. With August Diehl, a hitherto unknown representative of Expressive Realism has been discovered, who worked in secret throughout his life. The autodidact created an impressive oeuvre of paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures, which, in its political unambiguousness and power, are reminiscent of the works of George Grosz, Otto Dix and Max Beckmann. Born Anton Emanuel Kürnitz in Halle/Saale in 1886 as the first of three children of a butcher, he grew up in modest circumstances and followed his father‘s professional career. During the First World War, Diehl served as an infantryman, but was dismissed as unfit for service in 1916 as a result of a gunshot wound. The war is a key experience for Diehl. The horror, the destruction and the human suffering changed his personality and his relationship to society permanently and finally find expression in his art. In the mid-1920s he fled his hometown of Halle/Saale and attempted a fresh start in the anonymity of the big city of Hamburg. As a „commoner“ as he described himself, he stayed away from artistic circles and lived a withdrawn, torn life. During the day he worked in a large butcher‘s shop, in the evening and at night as a draftsman and  painter. In just 10 years, until his death in 1938, he created a  controversial artistic work that he kept secret. From today‘s perspective, his excessive work can be read as a  rocessing of his war experiences and the resulting change in his personality. In a desperately aggressive form, which is reflected in his works in a cool  realism, Diehl criticizes the social constraints of the time and thereby anticipates tendencies that came to light in German National Socialism. At the same time, he developed a striking and high-contrast imagery that is highly topical from today‘s perspective. Correspondences in the  pictorial language of Max Beckmann and George Grosz can be found in the work of August Diehl as well as echoes of the expressive pictorial vocabulary of Chaim Sutine. In addition to a strong alcohol problem, Diehl suffered from a latent paranoia that was intensified by the changed power structures of the emerging National Socialism in Germany. With the beginning of his artistic work in 1928, he signed his works with the name August Diehl in order to remain unrecognized as the author if his system-critical pictures were discovered. When August Diehl drowned in 1938 as a result of his drunkenness  when he fell into the Hamburg harbor basin, there is no trace of his work. It was only in 2009 that works by an unknown painter were discovered in England, which turned out to be part of August Diehl‘s work.